


Human Again

by raspberryhunter



Series: Being Human [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-01
Updated: 2012-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-31 22:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raspberryhunter/pseuds/raspberryhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle reminds Rumplestiltskin what it is to be human; they plot to overthrow the Queen. </p><p>AU for (the last half of) "Skin Deep," and for everything that comes after "Skin Deep" in the internal OUAT chronology.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Again

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta! In this AU, the deals with Cinderella never happened (so Rumplestiltskin was never imprisoned); the deals with Snow White may still have happened, though possibly in a different form.

"I don't see why we couldn't at least try it," Belle said. "Of course I wanted to ask you first, but --"

There was something a little horrible in Rumplestiltskin's smile. "No one could ever love me," he snarled. "You would not be able to uncurse me with true love's kiss. You could not truly love me unless you knew me and the things I have done, and you would not love me if you knew the things I had done."

"What have you done, then?" Belle asked.

The smile twisted. "For starters, I turned your paramour Sir Gaston into a rose."

Belle's eyes flicked, despite herself, to the rose on the table. "You're joking."

"I am not," Rumplestiltskin said, almost gently.

Belle backed away. "You must undo this."

Rumplestiltskin crossed his arms and leaned against the table. "You care so much for Gaston, then?"

Belle scowled. "I would care thus for any man who had been _turned into a rose_ against his will." A sudden thought came to her. "Are there others you've turned into roses?"

"I believe Sir Gaston was my first rose."

Belle considered. "Somehow, I am not consoled by this. Are there others you've turned into other things?"

Rumplestiltskin smiled again. "You are learning the correct questions, dearie. Ash, puppets... yes."

She stared at him. "Why?"

He said, "Because they were in my way. Because they had things I wanted. And -- " he faltered just for a second -- "because I had forgotten what it was like to be a man. As the Dark One, I'm free of the... the worries and fears and vulnerabilities of being mortal and powerless."

Belle tilted her head. "And you forget what it's like to be mortal and powerless, or perhaps don't want to remember."

Rumplestiltskin shrugged and started prancing around in the impish way, Belle had come to realize, that meant he did not want to face what she was saying. "I'm a monster, a beast, yes. I don't know what it's like to be human anymore, hmm?"

"I'll remind you," Belle said. "Please don't turn people into -- into roses, or anything else, anymore."

Rumplestiltskin studied her. Finally, he bowed. "As you wish, my lady."

*

Belle nearly broke when she realized the puppets were actually people. "That's _horrible_!" she cried. "Turn them back. Turn them all back."

Rumplestiltskin leered at her. "Ah, dearie. Shall we make a deal? Your true love, for my turning them back into people."

"No," Belle snapped. "Love isn't a bargain or a deal. Love just is. Turn them back because it's what a good man would do."

"Ah, but you forget. I'm not a good man. I'm not even a man. I'm the Dark One."

He grabbed her by the arm -- "Ow!" she protested -- dragged her back to the dungeon, and threw her in. She stared incredulously at the door as it clanged behind him.

That night she was woken by Rumplestiltskin leaning over her, a ball of light in his hand. She drew breath to protest as Rumplestiltskin clapped his other hand over her mouth, stifling any scream she might make.

"Quietly, now," he said in her ear. "We are going to watch the lunar eclipse, and you are going to help carry the equipment."

She stared at him. He looked at her. She nodded, and he removed his hand.

Once they were on the roof of the castle, Rumplestiltskin seemed to relax. "She sleeps deeply tonight," he said, "and none of her mirrors are here, so I think we may talk without fear of her listening."

"Who?" Belle asked.

"The Queen."

*

Rumplestiltskin had the uneasy, unfamiliar feeling that he was trying to justify himself. "And it is pushing the boundaries even to promise that I won't turn people into puppets anymore," he said. "I certainly can't turn them back without alerting the Queen that something is going on." Belle frowned, and Rumplestiltskin quickly hurried on. 

"The other problem with breaking the curse on me is that it must either be transferred to another person -- and, dearie, I may be amoral and inhuman, but that is one thing I am unwilling to do -- or else the Queen is left as the sole major power in the land. Which I am even less willing to do."

"Then it seems there is no way out for you or for any of the people you have cursed," Belle said, her eyes round.

"I thought so for many years. But the events of today have made me realize something. I... I felt angry, betrayed, when I thought the Queen had suborned you. I had forgotten what it was like to feel that way. That humans feel that way. And I realize now that this is how the Queen feels: she desires greatly to wreak revenge on all who have wronged her, and she imagines this to be everyone."

"And this may be a weakness you can exploit to defeat her."

He nodded.

Belle drew in a breath. "Why are you telling me all this?"

He turned away from her so that she could not see his face. "I trust you, I suppose, which is even more important than true love," he said. "And because I want your help. This will require a very large, complicated spell, and I want an apprentice, a partner, to help with the crafting."

"You'll teach me magic?"

"That is part of the bargain, yes." He looked back at her.

The expression on her face, awe and wonder and gratitude rolled up together, warmed his greedy heart in ways he hadn't realized he had desired. And then the look faded, replaced by determination. "Rumplestiltskin -- after this is done, there will be no reason not to turn back the people you've turned into roses and -- and other things."

"You are persistent," Rumplestiltskin observed.

"Yes," Belle agreed, waiting.

He inclined his head briefly. "It is a Deal. When the Queen is taken care of, I will turn all of them back."

*

"Perhaps she could make a wish that would rebound on herself?" Belle asked as she carefully poured one solution into another. "There, is that right?"

Rumplestiltskin inspected the resulting flask. "A little too pink. Add a bezoar." He shook his head. "I've thought about things like that, even tried a couple," he said. "There was a djinn... but where there is magic involved, even when it does not belong to her, she is quite canny, and too good at figuring out a way to warp it for her own ends."

"If there weren't magic for anyone, anywhere," Belle said, rummaging around for the bezoar, "she wouldn't be able to use it for herself."

Rumplestiltskin opened his mouth, paused, and stared at her. Finally he said, "I think you may have hit on something. If the curse somehow got rid of magic for _everyone_ \-- if the Queen could be convinced to do this -- if the Queen were unable to use her spells, her mirrors -- then it wouldn't matter if I were human again, I could still oppose her."

Belle turned so quickly she almost dropped the jar she was holding. "Wait. Would this also mean your curse would be broken?"

He shook his head. "No, no. In such a case, I'd take on a human form, and I'd lose my magic as well, but I'd still have to be the Dark One to keep watch over her until the cursebreaker appears. Because every curse, as you have been told, can be broken, and when this one is broken -- hm. When it is broken, her power must stay broken as well; how?"

Belle put the jar down and said slowly, "When such a curse was broken, what would happen to magic?" 

Rumplestiltskin gazed up at the sky. "If magic disappears wholly," he began, "if... If the end of the curse means the permanent destruction of magic everywhere -- then no one can ever become another Queen, or another Dark One."

Their eyes met for a long moment. "That... could work," Rumplestiltskin whispered. He seized her hands, started dancing a crazy jig with her on the top of the castle as she laughed at him. "That could very well work!"

He stopped, their hands still entwined. They looked at each other again. Rumplestiltskin dropped her hands. "Well, we'd better start working," he said. "We've got a lot to do."

*

"And so Snow and Charming's baby is just going to end up in that world by the side of the road?" Belle demanded. "There must be couples longing for a child in that world as well. Surely one of them could take the baby. Can't that be worked into the spell?"

Rumplestiltskin frowned. "Each additional constraint becomes that much harder to incorporate into the spell, you know, especially since this would be an adjunct to the main curse. I've taught you well enough that you should know that."

Belle sighed. "I do know. It's just that -- the curse is going to bring so much unhappiness anyway, for a time; I just thought that maybe that poor baby, being outside of the curse, could be spared some of that."

Rumplestiltskin looked into the distance, thinking. "Perhaps it is not such a terrible constraint to fulfill as all that. Perhaps -- " He drew glittery lines in the air with his finger. "Yes. I cannot do it alone, but I think it can be done with both of us working together. I'll have to teach you how to create these diagrams."

Belle rubbed her forehead. "I know I'm just making more work for both of us," she said. "I don't mind doing it, of course. But --"

Rumplestiltskin laughed out loud. "You are reminding me to be human," he said. "Don't stop."

*

"You don't know how many years this will take?" Belle said incredulously.

Rumplestiltskin pointed at the glowing lines in the air. "You can see here that it depends on Snow and Charming's baby making her way back inside the curse. So more than ten years, say. But fewer than sixty."

"Sixty years?" Belle almost screamed. At Rumplestiltskin's sharp look, she spoke more quietly. "That's a long time to be stuck in a miserable curse, not being able to escape."

Rumplestiltskin blinked. "Is that really a long time?" Belle nodded. Rumplestiltskin pursed his lips. "I don't think it will be sixty years; there are things I can do that will hurry it up a bit. And they should not realize the time passing. The Queen will, but they will not; it will be as if they're passing through a dream."

"Or a nightmare," Belle said. "It -- is starting to really bother me that we're doing this to all of Fairyland without even asking. It's a horrible thing, condemning them like this, when they don't even know."

Rumplestiltskin sighed. "You are right. I was glad that you asked me whether I wanted my curse broken; I don't know how I would have reacted if you had just -- tried to break it, without asking my consent. And yet, and yet -- I see no other way to do this."

*

Belle was surprised that Rumplestiltskin took no precautions as they scryed out the Queen preparing the curse. "Doesn't she know we are watching her?" Belle asked.

Rumplestiltskin nodded. "She does. She is... otherwise occupied at the time, of course; otherwise we should not be doing this openly."

Belle closed her eyes, opened them again. "I am afraid," she said, her voice low. "I will forget you, won't I? Will I forget my whole life?"

"I don't know," Rumplestiltskin said quietly. "You know as well as I do that the strictures of the spell haven't left much room for exceptions. I think it is quite likely that in the world of the curse you will know me only as -- as someone who is cruel, who keeps people captive in one way or another. Which -- pardon me, my dear -- is true. But I think it is likely that you will retain your father, and perhaps even Gaston, though your relationship with them will be changed."

Belle exhaled. "It's wrong, what we're doing."

"But it was the only way we could find," Rumplestiltskin said gently, "to save everyone in the end."

And they saw the Queen pronounce the curse. And Rumplestiltskin closed his eyes and gestured with his hand, once, twice, thrice.

"The Deal is kept," he said. He looked exhausted, Belle thought. "Gaston and the rest will be waking up on the lower floors of the castle, and they will be able to work out their destinies in the other world." He did not look at her. "You may go find them, if you wish. There will probably be just enough time, if you hurry."

Belle did not move. She took a deep breath. "Rumplestiltskin," she said softly. 

He raised his eyes to hers. Belle said, "I do love you, you know. Not because you turned them back into people. I told you love wasn't a deal. But I love you because of your courage. Because of who you are. I won't try to break your curse, not when we're so close to succeeding. I just wanted to tell you before -- before I forgot."

She reached for him, and he drew her close. The last thing she saw as the curse started rolling over them was Rumplestiltskin's face, worn and sad, his eyes mirroring the longing she felt. His hand smoothed her hair. "You are the courageous one, not I," he said. "Belle, I --"

And  
everything  
changed.

She was in Mr. Gold's pawn shop. Mr. Gold was watching her. Why was she here? She didn't remember. Perhaps to look for a present for her father?

"I --" Mr. Gold started. She shrank away. He stopped, and his face had a look of such hurt that she inadvertently took a step towards him, thinking to comfort him. He passed a hand over his face, and the look was gone, so quickly that she decided she must have imagined it. Why, indeed, should Mr. Gold show pain to her, or want her comfort? 

Mr. Gold said, "Is there anything you are interested in, my dear? A tea set, perhaps? One of the cups is chipped, but it is a lovely set all the same."

"No-- no, thank you," she stammered. "I-- I have to go. Gaston is meeting me, and we must help my father load the roses."

"So you must," he said, no emotion at all in his voice. "Go on, now."

She almost ran to the door in her haste to escape.

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a nervous tic I couldn't get rid of. I just... quite apart from Belle and Rumplestiltskin, those poor puppets!
> 
> Credit is due to the people on the boards of televisionwithoutpity.com, who came up with many of the ideas about the curse, and thanks to sophiegrace for forcing me to at least acknowledge the consent issues...


End file.
